40 31 August 2018

MATERIAL ADVANTAGE: SEEKING ALTERNATIVES TO RELIANCE ON STEELRAMSSES project turns spotlight on using composites to increase competitiveness of European-built shipsGeoff GarfieldLondon

A EUROPEAN Union-sponsored project is seeking to bring modern, lightweight materials into ship-building and move the industry away from decades of almost total dependence on steel.

RAMSSES, which is short for Realization and Demonstration of Advanced Material Solutions for Sustainable and Efficient Ships, is focusing especially on fibre-rein-forced composites.

A key motivator is to make Eu-ropean-built ships more competi-tive by improving their life-cycle performance.

Innovative, organic materials such as composites can weigh far less than their contemporaries and offer the potential for lower fuel consumption, thereby miti-gating greenhouse gas emissions and increasing cargo capacity.

RAMSSES is concentrating its efforts on 13 demonstration maritime product cases, ranging from equipment and superstruc-ture to hulls and repair, in prepa-ration for their adoption commer-cially.

Opinion is that despite a rise in commercial useage of such mate-rials and processes, the full poten-tial of lightweight and advanced materials has still to be realised.

The consortium of 36 partners in RAMSSES — from 13 European countries — includes some of the large, technology-pioneering Eu-ropean shipyards such as Meyer Werft, Fincantieri and Damen, as well as smaller players such as Croatia’s Uljanik.

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tems and BaltiCo are among the equipment manufacturers that are also involved.

The financial coordinator for RAMSSES is Fincantieri techni-cal research arm Cetena, while the Center of Maritime Tech-nologies (CMT) in Hamburg is handling the technical manage-ment.

TradeWinds met CMT technical coordinators Frank Roland and Matthias Krause, both with a ship-yard background, and Stephane Paboeuf, head of section compos-ite materials at classification soci-ety Bureau Veritas.

Roland says the project, which is expected to run for four years, is in parallel with FIBRESHIP, which aims to develop a new EU-based market for large, complete ships in fibre-reinforced polymers (FRP).

The use of FRP materials is ex-pected to reduce structural weight by as much as 30%, make fuel sav-ings of 15% and increase ship sta-bility. From that, greenhouse-gas emissions savings, increased car-go capacity and improved mate-rial recycling percentage should also flow.

The two projects, each of which began about a year ago, are quite complementary, says Roland, who sees the future as multi-material ships.

Composites consist of a com-bination of two or more different materials arranged in layers in different directions to optimise strength.

They are typically tougher than traditional materials. Carbon fi-bre-reinforced composites can be

five times stronger than 1020 grade steel, while having

one-fifth of the weight,

requirements for certifying ful-ly composite materials, while RAMSSES is more interested in testing and accelerating the cer-tification process to prove equiva-lent safety to steel vessels through alternative design analysis.

This means not repeating ex-pensive risk assessments already carried out in Europe covering ar-eas such as material strengths and fire safety. Hence, RAMSSES is tar-geting a database to speed up the testing processes.

“We don’t want to develop new rules as FIBRESHIP does,” Ro-land says.

“If we want to be com-petitive in Europe,

we have to build

says the Composites UK trade as-sociation.

Resins connect the fibres, some-times sandwiched between a core of foam or balsa wood to reduce the weight. One example is the Sand-wich Plate System (SPS), compris-ing two metal plates bonded with a polyurethane elastomer core, used for the repair and strength-ening of ships. Metallic foams are not dealt with by RAMSSES.

However, it is looking at how steel can be used more efficient-ly, including higher-strength steel, and improving its proper-ties. This includes the application of high-performance steels in load-carrying hull structures.

While FIBRESHIP is concentrat-ing on the whole ship, Roland says RAMSSES is targeting the more low-hanging fruit, such as the su-perstructure on passengerships. The two projects have agreed to cooperate on technical matters and on generating proposals for the development of rules.

RAMSSES, which focuses on International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (Solas) vessels, is working on a lot of passenger-ship applications — cruiseships, ferries and ropaxes, etc — an area of shipbuilding where Europe still holds sway. Roland says the inten-tion is to defend that niche but also win back market share in oth-er sectors.

Krause stresses that the spread of RAMSSES applications covers many more ship types and will help to win back market share in other sectors.

He says FIBRESHIP leans to-wards developing prescriptive

better ships than the others and we have to be as efficient.

“Steel is still a valid material and we have not used its full potential. But the future material is compos-ites. You can do much more with design options, optimal strengths, fuel and emissions.”

He concedes that there are vari-ous safety issues with composites related to fire, and the industry lacks the long history of experi-ence using steel.

Hence, extensive testing and development of numer-

ical methods are need-

ed to pre-

WORKING PARTNERS: (From left) Stephane Paboeuf of Bureau Veritas with Frank Roland and Matthias Krause of CMT Photos: Geoff Garfield

BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE: A production wall truss structure supplied by BaltiCo (below) and (far right) Becker Marine Systems’ C-Flap FEM rudder for a containership, which uses lightweight and high-performance materials Photos: Center of Maritime Technologies and Becker Marine Systems

31 August 2018 41

ULJANIK PROVES SIZE DOES NOT ALWAYS MATTERONE EXAMPLE of composite materials being used successfully in shipbuilding is at Uljanik, one of the partners of the European union-sponsored Realization and Demonstration of Advanced Material Solutions for Sustaina-ble and Efficient Ships (RAMSSES) project.

The Croatian shipyard has used composites in deck plating on Siem Car Carriers’ 7,000-ceu Siem Cicero (built 2017), saving more than 200 tonnes in weight and enabling dozens more vehi-cles to be carried.

Frank Roland of the Center of Maritime Technologies in Hamburg believes it is the first commercial application in a ves-sel regulated by the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea.

FRANK ROLAND of the Center of Maritime Technologies in Hamburg rejects the argument that shipping is conservative and slow to adapt.

The fact is that testing times are longer because vessels are expected to last for around 30 years and operate in extreme seas and weather conditions, he says.

Composite materials have been used in pleasure craft for 50 years, providing plenty of feedback on behaviour in seawa-ter, adds Stephane Paboeuf of Bureau Veritas. However, further investigation is needed, especially into the effect on resins, as they are organic.

Accelerated ageing method-ology has been developed to evaluate properties over 20-year to 30-year periods. Experts rec-ognise that ageing of the adhesive materials could be an issue.

Manufacturers have already developed new formulas to increase mechanical properties

to limit degradation by seawater, Paboeuf says.

Det Norske Veritas, which has since become part of DNV GL, led the European BONDSHIP project, which produced the first compre-hensive guidelines for adhesive- bonded joints in ships.

Bonding steel to steel does not make much sense but the intro-duction of new materials means greater use of adhesive bonding, albeit taking into consideration potential fire risks.

Roland says upcoming tech-nologies such as 3D printing will “open doors to completely new designs”. The use of 3D printing features among the 13 programmes of the Realization and Demonstration of Advanced Material Solutions for Sustainable and Efficient Ships (RAMSSES) project, including potential for rudders and propellers.

Composites are already availa-ble for propellers, increasing effi-ciency while reducing underwater noise, as well as for patch repairs.

“In the end, the market decides and the market will call for solutions which are simple, not too risky, and which earn money,” Roland says.

As well as repairing steel, composites can be used to im-prove the fatigue properties of welds.

In future years, it is hoped there will be prescriptive rules to make things easier for such materi-als to be adopted. For the time being, Roland says safety testing remains paramount.

He adds that innovative mate-rials will be required for storing new fuels, such as methanol, while more thought is going into how weight saved by using composites can benefit vessel designs.

A rough calculation some time ago indicated a one kg reduction in weight equates to a fuel saving of one kg per year.

“But that is certainly not the only argument for using compos-ites,” Roland says.

SHIPPING IS INNOVATIVE BUT TESTING TAKES TIME — CMT

BUSINESS FOCUS: SHIP DESIGN & INNOVATION

dict future performance and how to integrate new materials from a functional and safety perspec-tive, and into the steel shipyard process, as well as ensuring that such vessels can be repaired glob-ally.

RAMSSES needs to thoroughly assess how the new materials per-form in terms of cost, longevity, technical properties and environ-mental costs.

Participating members in RAMSSES range from Nether-lands-based Damen, which al-ready has considerable experience using composites, to much small-

er companies, including one in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vor-pommern that is producing sand-wich panels it wants to sell in the maritime market.

Damen is already constructing smaller-vessel hulls in compos-ites, but the ambition is to scale up to larger hulls using vacuum infusion — a process that uses vac-uum pressure to drive resin into a laminate.

This project, like RAMSSES, is also receiving funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovations pro-gramme.

Stephane Paboeuf of Bureau Veritas says the classification society investigated metallurgy of the alternative design and carried out risk analysis to “demonstrate this solution was as safe as steel decks”.

Paboeuf says Uljanik showed how a relatively small shipyard can succeed, even though it cannot match the big builders in human resources.

The Damen Group, which operates 32 shipyards and other

companies worldwide, has built an entire urban ferry from com-posites.

Roland says there is the potential to build hulls of large ships entirely with such materials. However, it depends on customers’

specifications as to whether it makes sense.

A combination of steel hulls and composite materials for superstructures is a solution, Paboeuf says.

“I think the future will be a material mixture,” Roland con-curs.

The phrase “multi-material ships” has been coined, includ-ing the potential for cabins on passengerships to be made load-bearing.

A lot of non-steel materials are already available but not used yet for load-carrying struc-tures.

“In the future, I think whole structures of ships will look different, with the right materials used in the right places,” Roland says.

TOPPING IT OFF: The top three decks of Siem Car Carriers’ Siem Cicero (built 2017) are made from composite panels Photo: Center of Maritime Technologies